


Panorama: The Death of The Assassin's Daughter

by aineni



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy, Skulduggery Pleasant - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27992712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aineni/pseuds/aineni
Summary: Mair Dóchas, quite ironically, does not consider herself to be an optimist. For somebody whose name means hope, she does not hold much of it in her heart. No, her mother beat that out of her some time ago.Mair is walking home when she gets attacked by people looking to harm her mother.Honestly? This fic is grounded in a lot of very specific fandom lore, but I think it'd be enjoyable to people who haven't engaged with the SP Fanclub side of things, or even with the Skulduggery books themselves. These are original characters, and they stand on their own two feet. (Originally from wattpad, fight me.)





	Panorama: The Death of The Assassin's Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers but also warnings:  
> Violence. Torture. Main character death. Death of pregnant woman.

Mair Dóchas, quite ironically, does not consider herself to be an optimist. For somebody whose name means hope, she does not hold much of it in her heart. No, her mother beat that out of her some time ago.

It is while Mair is walking past her uncle's house, on the night that she is to die, that she finally releases the last pained echoes of her mother's neglect from within her soul. She can almost see her worries slip away into the wind, wisps of pain escaping into the cool night air.

If she was an Elemental, as her uncle, they may have appeared as tendrils of smoke, snaking their way from her being and back into the earth. Or a Necromancer, as her mother, and slivers of pure darkness would creep into the countryside town, filled with her pain and neglect.

Yet, Mair is neither of these things. A mistake. One of many, actually. To choose to treasure rather than destroy, when her name already goes directly against her mother. Mair: to survive - a direct slap in the face to the woman who birthed her. For Marfach's name is much like the woman herself: _deadly_.

_Let her go,_ Dóchas' mind urges, and so she does, walking right by the house in which she was raised, the place she once called home. She doesn't anymore. Now, home is something very different indeed. Home is family - and not the one who left her with the nurse, Xenia, for the entirety of her childhood.

Family is something else. Family is... well. She places a hand on her belly and smiles fondly. It is only swelling a little bit, not yet big enough to be visible and not quite old enough to be safe from miscarriage.

Mair is going to tell Pádraig tonight. It is too early to announce it to their friends, but hopefully - _hopefully_ \- they will be able to do so in a few weeks' time. She shall tell her father too. He may not have been with her during her early years, but the man had loved her, once he learned that she existed in the first place.

Marfach needn't know at all.

It's while she's thinking this, while she's vowing to be a better mother than hers ever was, that she truly leaves the overly grand house behind her. It isn't far enough when she feels hands grab onto her from behind. Rough skin clamps around her face, forcing her mouth closed and preventing her from screaming.

She doesn't know what to do. 

Her throat closes up, tears spring to her eyes and ice flows through her veins. Something cold is wrapped around her wrists, tying her hands together. For once, she curses, wishing she had chosen a violent discipline like she was supposed to. Her collection of words and languages cannot help her now.

Mair struggles against her bonds, finding it difficult to breathe as the fabric digs into her skin, no doubt chafing it and turning it to a bright red colour. The men around her look like they've been carved from rock - strongly built with cold eyes and snarling mouths. Cruel, cruel faces.

She doesn't want to die.

Her thoughts are interrupted, quenched and stilled, when she is hit over the head by a scarred fist and she goes spiralling into the unknown.

When Mair Dóchas wakes, the floor - _floor, not ground_ \- is rough underneath her body. Her head pounds, her mind feels like it's fractured and trying to push its way out of her head. Her hands are still bound, but she no longer feels the pain of her wrists. It's drowned out by the rawness of her throat, the horrible feeling of her blood on her skin, in her hair.

The figure in front of her, coming into focus as Mair's vision stops spinning, looks just as wrecked.

As Mair takes in Marfach's bleeding limbs, bruised face and fear-filled golden eyes, everything that she had wished away just hours before comes rushing back. Rage bubbles in her stomach with the realisation that _it is Marfach's fault_. Her fault that she lies here, on the cold and wet and _in pain_.

A man steps in front of her - one of the ones from earlier - not blocking her view of her mother. _Not blocking her mother's view of her_ , she realises. He raises a shining weapon - so bright that it seems to capture the light around it.

Mair knows, right now, that it doesn't matter whether she wants to or not. She will die tonight, and the baby growing in her belly will go right alongside her.

It is Marfach's fault.

Just when she thought it was over, when she had let the woman go and tried to dispel all the despair, the hatred, the _rage_. All the emotions came back again, hitting her like an iron fist out of nowhere, causing Mair to bend forward, choking back tears and whimpers and pleas.

They haven't even begun to torture her yet.

Raising her head a fraction, only to lock her blue eyes onto Marfach's golden ones, she gasps out, "I hate you." And she swears that her mother blanches, eyes filling with tears and pure misery. She swears that she sees her mother b r e a k.

The woman sobs, screaming and begging to _take her instead - hurt her instead for Morrígan's sake!_ Mair wants to curse her mam, let her know exactly what she thinks of her damned ancient gods. But she never gets the chance to.

A golden whip comes down on her head. Mair only sees a flash of it before her chin hits the floor. _A mockery_ , some numb part of her mumbles as she looses a scream. Pain dances through her body as the air rushes past her now broken teeth, her jaw making noises of its own. And Mair slips into the darkness again.

Every time she wakes, the torture gets worse, the pain rises.

Until she's left with a broken body and a broken soul, and the broken girl does not wake.


End file.
